More Go Than Show - New Edge Content

[wickedsnake00]

Isn't it fun to be ***** by multiple communities?



Great to hear you're twin-charging it! Big love to the Termi swap, that's awesome. I'm a big blue oval fan, and having crossed two cars off the "dream car" list already [my Starion and my Shelby Lancer], the next step is a Terminator.

Definitely watching this.

Glad someone got the Don Hertzfeldt reference.

And I love the Shelby Lancers. There was a guy with one back home I was always impressed by. Turbo Mopars never got the respect they deserved, that's for sure. If I could find one I'd snap it up in a heartbeat.

That said here's a little teaser for some of the latest progress.

I sanded off some of the crappy paint I did when I got it to cover up the primer and threw some color and clear on it using rattlecans. Low budget, but I'm actually surprised how well it turned out, especially as a temporary thing.

Here's what it started as-


Here's where I started last weekend-



And here's some in-progress pictures of the sides getting a little love-



Then here's the anti-stance tank you can see in the background-


That's all rattlecan.
I finished up all the panels I sanded last night at about 9:30PM during a stressful week. I was in no mood to upload the final result. I'll get that this weekend.

Keep in mind this is with zero wetsanding or buffing yet. There's some orange peel and dry spray on it I admit, but nothing the aforementioned treatment won't make short work of.

I'm thoroughly looking forward to showing this off to my parents this weekend who had seen what a heap it was when I brought it home.

Meanwhile I've decided to put off fresh rubber till the spring since it would be foolish to put fresh tires on it, run it for a week or two, then sit in the garage. Sucks, but makes sense.

I've also started doing my homework (which is an awful lot like my job ironically) for packaging a compound setup. Short list involves CG Fabrication FF headers, fab up my own hot side with the turbine on the passenger side. It'll require new exhaust and midpipe. I'll need a remote thermostat mount and re-configuring my water hoses. I'll need to fab up and relocate the coolant reservoir, no big deal since my battery is already relocated so there's plenty of room there. I'll need a remote oil filter mount, possibly a liquid to air cooler as well.

Air side cooling will be a challenge. I've looked at another compound build for inspiration. He ran turbo out straight to the SC inlet and just went to increased intercooler liquid capacity with a bigger heat exchanger. I'd like to try and put an air to air in before that, but it will have to be pretty thin or small.

Looks like I should be able to keep pretty busy this winter.

[Chuckdee]

Good job with the paint! looking good so far.

[MommysLittleMonster]

Always love these "save someone else's hack job" threads.

Keep it up.

x2. It's great to see someone save a car like you are, and bring it back to life the right way. I did the same thing with my car, and my heart goes out to those who do it today.

Also, love the Don H. reference in your gauge pod.

[02Saleen]

nice work!

[wickedsnake00]

Some pictures of the paint once it has dried. It certainly needs some wetsanding and buffing, but overall it's tough to tell it was a rattlecan job.




It looks nothing at all like the heap I limped into my driveway a couple years ago. It is well on its way to being a decent car.

The downside is yet another setback. I've got a strong suspicion that my radiator may be plugged. After the temperature rose way too high after a few pulls, despite repeated burping, a new cap and new thermostat, I found that the top of the radiator was hot, then suddenly the bottom was stone cold.

If it does turn out to be the radiator I'll be getting a new aluminum aftermarket piece, possibly with some dual pusher fans to help set the stage for the compound build.

Then it's just up to me to put the work in over the winter to take this build to a whole new level; from mild Cobra clone to balls out this means business street monster.

[Isuzupickup]

I'm another Ford fanboy, this is awesome! I don't know much on the subject of twin charging. I saw the turbo in the thread like "wait, it's supercharged already..." and then I was like "Oh helll no!" Get those other rims on man, it's gonna change the car entirely.

[wickedsnake00]

Well, one step forward, two steps back.

I go to show off the car with the new paint, and after a few pulls the reservoir burps some coolant, which thanks to the heat extractor vents sprays all over my windshield. Uh oh. I limp her back home as I watch the coolant temp gauge climb.

So now I've torn apart the cooling system again trying to determine why it keeps running hot, and hoping like hell it isn't a head gasket. I thought I would have been fine since I replaced the cap and stat (stat was definitely bad), and I knew a few guys who were running swaps on the stock GT radiator.

Well it turns out the stat I have is a pretty crummy aftermarket, as was the one before it.
Not only that, but I realize the guys that are doing fine with their stock radiators are only making low 400's, and are both using 170deg aftermarket stats. Meanwhile I'm pushing close to 550 thanks to my cams, full exhaust/LT's, and ported/pullied blower, so that old radiator that was designed to cool a 260hp engine is probably getting its ass kicked.

Add to that my heater core is bypassed (blew out shortly after the new engine, probably due to the head cooling mod) so there's even less heat rejection.

I also noticed after the last run the top of my radiator was hot, but not the bottom. I pulled it, and dumped a pretty good share of this stuff out the bottom-

Took it to a shop, and it flowed well, but the lower half was covered in rust/silica scale. So there's another reason I was losing capacity.

Overall it's a 260hp radiator with no heater core, a lousy stat, filled with crap, and partially blocked by a huge dual pass heat exhanger for the blower. At that point I would have been lucky if it cooled the original 260hp engine let alone the mess in there now.

I'm going to give it a try with no stat and the fan locked on high with the cleaned radiator to see how it behaves. It the temperature stays reasonable, I may not have to take the heads off. Then I'll just get a new Cobra or aluminum dual pass radiator and call it a day.

If I do have to tear the heads off, I figure I might as well get some work done while I'm at it. You know, in between the fetal position and crying. I figure I'll send the heads off to get ported, as well as consider her down for the season, and get down to the real business.

Here's the test fit I did while I tore the radiator out-


The worst part is that if this head gasket is blown, it probably was blown when I bought it since I put less than 50mi on it since I've had it. The seller assured me it was fine, but I'm starting to think I may have gotten hosed. I just wish I would have known so I could have done it while I had it blown apart on a stand for cams.

She never fails to plague me, that's for sure...

[wickedsnake00]

I notice I'm way behind in updates.

The radiator was disassembled and cleaned thoroughly. I re-installed it and it seems to be working beautifully. No more overheating.

Here's some pictures I snapped about a month or so ago.









Needless to say, they got a terrible reception in the showroom.

Even though 99% here think it's a POS, it's living up to it's build thread title.
Clicky here for video >>>


It also did a good job laying down these, while rolling in 2nd gear-


Lots of little goodies to be thrown on in the next few weeks. It's more a challenge of time than anything else at this point, what with prepping the truck for winter, and prepping the Neon for sale.

[Chuckdee]

nice update man!

[DomStance]

Glad to see another Indiana guy with a mustang! Heck of a build! What drag strip do/will you go to??

[rice4life]

<3
Nice

[wickedsnake00]

Well I can see I've slacked off quite a bit. Winter has slowed down my motivation a bit, and I had myself a nice long vacation back home.

I did get around to some smaller touches that have been neglected though.

Front end got a radiator shroud fabricated, COP covers painted red, finally got a foglight bezel for the passenger side, and finally got a pony emblem.



Still looking for stock headlights.

I also bled the brakes. That turned into a fiasco. Snapped the bleeder on the passenger front. Had to drill/tap it, put in a brass insert, epoxy it, then re-bleed everything. While I was doing that I found this-


Not cool. The upper control arm bushing is trashed. (I'm sure that had nothing to do with the 550ft-lb of torque going through it) Looks like a FTB bushing kit is next up on the order list.

Meanwhile the next small project will be cleaning up this mess of a trunk from the PO. Only one wire in this shot is from me, and I've already removed ~25' worth of wire.


And the turbo build might be put on the backburner for awhile. Might start work on the Cutlass. Not to mention I'll be dropping some cash on a tuner and deletes for the truck after some ******* tried to steal my exhaust while I was at work. He managed to take half of it apart and break one line but didn't get to make off with the goods. I noticed it by the massive exhaust leak he created.

[wickedsnake00]

Still can't get that video to embed. Damn.

Well I realized how bad all that extra POR15 looks on the engine bay, so I took care of that.



Much better engine bay.

Next up on the hit list is I should be getting a set of OEM headlights relatively soon.

Otherwise much effort has been spent on the truck.

Washed:


And the beginning to my improvised anti-theft system-


3/8" chain welded to the DPF and DOC. They want a challenge they got it.

[kittenpuncher]

[/QUOTE]

jezuz who trys to steal an exhaust people these days no respect.

[wickedsnake00]

Well based on recent events it looks like someone needs to improve the reputation of Mustangs on here. Not all of us are running swaybarless, confederate flag painted, and cut control arms. Oh well, I like a challenge.

Lately I've been slacking. Too damn cold to be out there doing much.

I did make some desperately needed progress on the trunk last weekend though. Cleaned it up quite a bit from what it originally was. Pulled some wires, re-ran others, re-routed some, and installed some home made P-clips to hold it all together. I also tucked my dual FPDM harness and fuel pump relay away.

Before:

After:

About half what was removed:


Since there's no trunk interior, I'm contemplating spraying it with the retro trunk paint. It's a textured black paint with blue flecks they used on most of the old muscle cars. I certainly liked it on my Cutlass.

Next big milestones:
Need to replace the heater core. Should be done in March.
Order Full Tilt Boogie bushing kit for the rear. Probably March, install around April, depending on weather.
Get new tires. Probably April, or whenever the weather breaks.

I'm also on the hunt for new headlights. Not much luck on that front.